An ally of Mohandas K. Gandhi in India's...

JAGJIVAN RAM, 78,

July 7, 1986

NEW DELHI, INDIA — JAGJIVAN RAM, 78, an ally of Mohandas K. Gandhi in India's fight for independence and a champion of the ''untouchables'' during a 50-year political career, died Sunday. He had been hospitalized since May with severe respiratory problems.

Ram was jailed repeatedly during the civil disobedience movement that led to India's 1947 independence from Britain. He was India's first secretary of labor and was secretary of defense during the India-Pakistan war that resulted in Bangladesh's independence from Pakistan in 1971.

Ram was from one of India's lower castes, the son of a farmer in the impoverished Bihar state. At college on a scholarship, he had to move from the students' hostel because the staff refused to deal with him because of his caste.

He began his political career in 1936 organizing agricultural workers in Bihar and fought during his life to end discrimination against ''untouchables,'' the lowest caste.

India's castes are a hereditary class structure. Though not recognized by the constitution, castes still play a social role. Ram was a member of India's lower house of Parliament from 1952 until his death.

He resigned in protest from the Cabinet of the late Prime Minister Indira Gandhi and from the governing Congress Party after her 1977 declaration of a state of emergency that suspended many democratic guarantees. He later became the leader of the party's main dissident faction, the Congress-J Party.